Stephen Herzog

Dr. Stephen Herzog is Professor of the Practice in the International and Global Studies Program at Middlebury College and the Director of the Vermont Office of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal The Nonproliferation Review, an Associate of Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom, and a Fellow of the Yale Nuclear Security Program. His research focuses on nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, disarmament, and the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and nuclear weapons. At Middlebury, Dr. Herzog leads CNS academic programming on the campus and teaches and mentors students in global security and public policy analysis.

Prior to joining Middlebury, Dr. Herzog was a Lecturer and Senior Researcher in Nuclear Arms Control at the Center for Security Studies of ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He has also been a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Between 2022 and 2025, he was Academic Co-Chair of the Beyond Nuclear Deterrence Working Group for Harvard and the MacArthur Foundation. Before his doctoral studies, Dr. Herzog was a nuclear arms control verification official at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and also worked at the Federation of American Scientists. He has worked, researched, and traveled in over 100 countries.

Dr. Herzog’s research is published in Contemporary Security Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, the European Journal of International Security, International Security, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, the Journal of Peace Research, the Naval War College Review, Perspectives on Politics, Risk Analysis, Survival, The Journal of Politics, and The Nonproliferation Review. His public affairs commentary has been featured in outlets including Arms Control Today, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Science, The National Interest, The Washington Post, and War on the Rocks. He co-edited Atomic Backfires: When Nuclear Policies Fail (MIT Press, 2025). His article on the nexus of AI and nuclear weapons proliferation won a 2025 Best Paper Award from the Society for Risk Analysis.

Dr. Herzog holds a B.A. in International Relations from Knox College, an M.A. in Security Studies from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University.